Saylor URL: http://www.saylor.org/books Saylor.org
Higgins and his colleagues documented the impact of self-concept discrepancies on emotion. For participants with
low self-concept discrepancies (right bars), seeing words that related to the self had little influence on emotions. For
those with high self-c oncept discrepancies (left bars), priming the ideal self increased dejection whereas priming the
ought self increased agitation.
Source: Adapted from Higgins, E. T., Bond, R. N., Klein, R., & Strauman, T. (1986). Self-discrepancies and
emotional vulnerability: How magnitude, accessibility, and type of discrepancy influence affect. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 51(1), 5–15.
One of the critical aspects of Higgins’s approach is that, as is our personality, our feelings are also influenced both by
our own behavior and by our expectations of how other people view us. This makes it clear that even though you
might not care that much about achieving in school, your failure to do well may still produce negative emotions
because you realize that your parents do think it is important.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- One of the most important psychological approaches to understanding personality is based on the psychodynamic
approach to personality developed by Sigmund Freud. - For Freud the mind was like an iceberg, with the many motivations of the unconscious being much larger, but also out
of sight, in comparison to the consciousness of which we are aware. - Freud proposed that the mind is divided into three components: id, ego, and superego, and that the interactions and
conflicts among the components create personality. - Freud proposed that we use defense mechanisms to cope with anxiety and to maintain a positive self-image.
- Freud argued that personality is developed through a series of psychosexual stages, each focusing on pleasure from a
different part of the body. - The neo-Freudian theorists, including Adler, Jung, Horney, and Fromm, emphasized the role of the unconscious and
early experience in shaping personality, but placed less evidence on sexuality as the primary motivating force in
personality. - Psychoanalytic and behavioral models of personality were complemented during the 1950s and 1960s by the theories
of humanistic psychologists, including Maslow and Rogers.